Saturday, December 30, 2017

Independent Travel to Cuba Still Possible for Americans

There remains a great deal of misinformation about travel to Cuba for Americans. (photo via Pixabay/Walkerssk)

Despite a flurry of news reports that would seem to indicate otherwise, it’s still possible for Americans to travel independently to Cuba.

It’s a crucial message and one that the coordinator of Cuba-US People to People Partnership is seeking to circulate far and wide before serious harm is done to the Cuban economy and private businesses on the Caribbean island.

“Tour operators, cruise lines and US government agencies must take steps to clarify the situation before more damage is done to the freedom of American travelers and to the well-being of private business in Cuba.”

In the wake of new travelregulations announced in Novemberby the Treasury Department, news organizations have issued wildly varying reports about the current situation, including stating that all visits must be done through recognized US group-tour agencies and that visits are now limited to tours sanctioned by the US government, permission for which the Trump administration can make as stringent as it wants.Numerous news organizations have erroneously reported that it’s no longer possible for Americans to travel independently to Cuba, said McAuliff.

The reality is that the individual general license for people to people travel has been abolished by Trump. However, McAuliff argues that equal, if not more freedom is available through the revised category known as “Support for the Cuban People.”

This additional category states that travelers must engage in a full-time schedule of activities that result in meaningful interaction with individuals in Cuba. Renting a room in a private Cuban residence (casa particular), eating at a privately owned Cuban restaurant (paladares) and shopping at privately owned stores run by self-employed Cubans (cuentapropistas) are all examples of authorized activities.

However, in order to meet the requirement of a full-time schedule, a traveler must engage in additional authorized Support for the Cuban People activities.

The stipulation that individuals participate in activity intended to strengthen civil society in Cuba is an aspiration common to most Americans, said McCauliff, and one satisfied by patronizing the private sector.

The Cuba-US People to People Partnership also stated that tour operators may have motive to discourage individual visits to the island, as they take place outside of their packaged programs or cruises.

“The unintended loss of independent American travelers is devastating to Cuba’s burgeoning private sector of bed and breakfasts, restaurants and local guides,” states the release from Cuba-US People to People Partnership.

Trump’s rollback of Obama-era travel freedoms in Cuba have not been the only damper on tourism to the island.

American travel has also been slowed by safety warnings issued in September by the US government, which included the US Embassy in Havana withdrawing 60 percent of its staff.

The government has warned Americans of alleged sonic attacks on US Embassy Havana employees. The mysterious attacks have been said to cause individuals to suffer from a range of symptoms including ear complaints, hearing loss, dizziness, headache, fatigue, cognitive issues and difficulty sleeping.

The U.S. and Cuban governments have not yet determined who is responsible for the attacks and the Cuban government has denied any involvement, calling the reports bizarre nonsense.

“Although the travel warning had no legal force, it created a negative atmosphere for new visitors,” the Cuba-US People to People Partnership said of the safety warnings.

Sunday, December 24, 2017

There is considerable misinformation and disinformation in mainstream and travel media about whether one can still travel independently to Cuba.

In effect, "Support for the Cuban People" was expanded to replace the individual People to People License. The only difference is that travelers are expected to patronize the private sector as much as possible for housing, meals and transportation.

The political language surrounding Support is virtually identical to both prior and current People to People licenses. To appease Sen. Rubio, intrusive, if not hostile, purposes are listed as alternatives to a personal commitment to full time engagement with the Cuban people. The crucial word for both licenses is "or".

For group travel the organizer is responsible for content and keeping records; for independent travel alone, or with family or with friends, the traveler(s) are responsible.

The bottom line is that independent travel is most supportive of the growing private sector in Cuba. It is at least as engaging with the Cuban people as prestructured group tours, especially if a local guide is hired. It certainly does more for the participant and for Cuba than cruises, a fully authorized mode of travel.

John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development
Cuba/US People to People Partnership

When I
proposed this topic, I expected to be able to describe an uneven progression
towards near normalcy for travel between our countries. However, events of the past six months have
muddied the waters and the future is harder to chart—unless you are a cruise
line, the least people to people but a completely authorized mode of travel.

Before the
revolution in 1959, Cuba was the primary Caribbean destination for Americans
and we provided 80% of its visitors.

Being able
to drink legally during prohibition was certainly an early attraction, but
Mafia investments in hotels, gambling, drugs and prostitution transformed the
destination in the 1950s. At least as
important were the same attractions that bring millions of visitors today:
history, culture, baseball, beaches and the engaging people of Cuba—plus the
ease of arrival whether by air, cruise line or by ferry.

Symbolically
the ninth convention of ASTA, the American Society of Travel Agents, took place
at the former Havana Hilton from October 17 to 24, 1959. According to a post by FIT Cuba

“More than two thousand
travel agents from 82 countries, accompanied by their families, visited the
Cuban capital. These were unprecedented figures when compared to the previous
eight conventions.” http://www.fitcuba.com/en/fit-cuba/historia/

Fidel Castro
was a special guest, warmly received when he declared,

“we in Cuba are very happy and grateful to you for honoring us all
with your presence …please put all your
political ideas aside. You and your friends are professionals, not politicians,
and your mission is to help your friends find the happiness our world may
provide.

We don’t have many things; we are not an industrialized country
and lack a number of things, but in the field of tourism we have many advantages,
like our sea, bays, beaches, all kinds of medicinal waters, mountains, game and
fishing preserves, and the best temperature in the world. ”

He
went on to say,

“we are determined to develop tourism as much as possible,
with a good service and, especially, fair prices, because rather than having
100,000 people paying for expensive hotel rooms and items we would like many
hundreds of thousands to come, not only the wealthy but also those who are not
rich and those who have no other fortune than their job… our ambition, which is
a well-intended ambition, is to turn our Island into the best vacation resort
and the most important destination worldwide.”

Presciently
he noted

“We’re aware of the fact that many U.S. citizens come here
with wrong ideas and then they find exactly the opposite of what they believed.
That’s why we think that regardless of all the propaganda against Cuba we will
make headway and have more tourists every year. Who is telling the truth, those
who lie or those who open the doors of the nation for everyone to come and see
for themselves what is truly going on in Cuba”

For just
that reason, the threat of reality overcoming propaganda, the end of US tourism
was a major and, for many years, a successful goal of the embargo.

It
dovetailed with Cuba’s disinterest in tourism in the initial decades of the
revolution. As the country’s turn toward
socialism faced growing threats from the US, Fidel’s early enthusiasm
apparently cooled. Tourism flourished domestically, but until the
mid-1970s foreign visitors were largely welcomed from politically aligned
countries or movements, either as vacation rewards or as demonstrations of solidarity. Conventional tourism was seen as carrying the
subversive seeds of social inequality. Cruises
received special denigration.

Entry to
Cuba was also discouraged by obstacles created by neighbors who followed the US
goal of isolating and undermining the revolution. I remember that on my first trip to Cuba in
1971 even Mexico only allowed us to transit by air to Cuba but not to return. As a result we went home via a freighter to
Canada in the dead of winter.

From the
beginning, there were people who ignored the travel embargo, either acting in
solidarity with the revolution or simply because they resented US government infringement
on their personal freedom. The Office of
Foreign Assets Control chased after violators, penalizing them with fines and
intimidation, notably through constant repetition of overstated legal risks in
newspaper articles. Individual
travelers were most vulnerable, often settling for payment of reduced fines
rather than risk criminal prosecution.
Probably the first US NGO to send visitors was Sandy Levinson’s Center
for Cuban Studies in 1973. Its
delegation of lawyers used the loophole of being fully hosted by Cuba. The Venceremos Brigade and later Pastors for
Peace famously defied the travel embargo with little consequence.

President
John Kennedy imposed travel restrictions in 1963 and President Jimmy Carter let
them lapse in 1977, the same year that Interest Sections were opened in both
capitals. However, the opportunity for a
breakthrough was missed. On the Cuban
side there was not the political interest or capacity to open the door to
commercial tourism from the US, nor did US companies take advantage of the
opportunity. President Ronald Reagan
reimposed restrictions in 1982.

The change of
perspective on the Cuban side began in the mid 1970s, but dramatic change is
linked to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the need to obtain new sources
of national income during the Special Period.

Henry Louis
Taylor Jr. and Linda McGlynn of the Center for Urban Studies at SUNY Buffalo
wrote in 1909:

“International tourist arrivals in Cuba fell from a peak of
272,000 in 1958 to less than 4000 annually from 1959 until 1973. By 1975, Cuba
had begun to promote tourism reaching over 300,000 visitors annually by 1990.
As the Special Period began, the industry exploded during the nineties and by
2000, the number of tourist arrivals to Cuba had doubled.” [“International tourism in Cuba: Can
capitalism be used to save socialism?” https://ubwp.buffalo.edu/aps-cus/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2015/07/using-capitalism-to-save-socialism.pdf]

A growing
stream of Americans illegally joined the stream, flying from Mexico, Canada or
Jamaica and usually escaping sanction.
However, legal travel for a diverse clientele only began in the Clinton
Administration. Clinton did not believe
he had the authority to unilaterally end the embargo with Cuba as he had with
Vietnam, but he could provide categories of licensing to provide
exceptions. Thus began the process of
applying to OFAC for approval of a specific license on a trip by trip
basis. Initially that was not so
complicated and my organization was one of many to do so, even without using a
lawyer. Cuban Americans were allowed to
visit once a year, plus for humanitarian reasons, but no effort was made to
enforce that limit.

It was not
lost on the hard line ultras among Cuban Americans that the negative propaganda
about their homeland was losing effect as more and more mainstream Americans personally
witnessed and even enjoyed a more complicated reality. Regardless of whether visitors admired or
despaired of Cuba’s political and economic system, they came home convinced
that the Cuban people did not hate Americans and the embargo was dumb.

The tactic
adopted by the ultras to challenge Clinton’s opening was Brothers to the Rescue. It used a humanitarian mission of saving
refugees at sea to mask deliberately provocative flights dropping political
leaflets over Havana in blatant violation of national airspace. One can argue that Cuba had no alternative in
defense of its sovereignty, or that it swallowed the bait of Miami. In any case the political reaction in the US
to the shoot down of the Brothers to the Rescue planes led to Clinton’s support
of the infamous Helms-Burton legislation and no greater opening of travel based
on executive authority. In 2000 the legal authorization of agricultural
sales was paired with the codification of categories of permitted purposeful
travel.

Although President
George Bush took power with the help of Cuban American interference in the vote
count in Florida, he initially made little change in Clinton’s travel
regulations. There was considerable
bipartisan momentum in Congress to find ways of ending travel
restrictions. The Miami ultras response
this time came via allies in the Administration. James Cason, the head of the US Interests
Section, had been directed by superiors in the State Department to create
enough provocations to push the Cubans to close it. His notoriously direct and public engagement
with US government supported dissidents led to a large number of arrests and
controversial trials that were labeled as the Black Spring and widely denounced
in the US and Europe. Again Cuba could be seen as defending its
sovereignty, but the political consequence in the US was the total collapse of
Congressional efforts for freedom of travel and agricultural sales, much to the
satisfaction of the ultras.

As President
Bush approached his reelection campaign,
he paid his political debt to Miami, drastically restricted travel
licenses and limited Cuban Americans to one trip in three years with no
humanitarian exceptions. However by
2007, enforcement was virtually stopped because the appeals process had ground
to a halt. Violations by Cuban Americans
were completely ignored except when a company tried to profit from them.

When
President Obama took office, he brought an anti-embargo disposition but also political
caution of how fast he could proceed.
As promised during his campaign, and despite pressure from some Cuban
American supporters, he fundamentally transformed the relationship between the
Cuban diaspora and their country of origin in April 2009, an approach welcomed
by the government in Havana. He ended
all restrictions on their travel and on remittances, permitting a process of
grass roots family investment that fit well into the new Cuban reality outlined
by the Lineamientos and the initiatives of President Raul Castro.

There were
news stories at the time that Obama also was considering opening travel for the
rest of us but the White House acceded to pressure from Senator Menendez. He did restore the definition of categories
from the Clinton era in January 2011.
There was a boom in licensed group tours, but OFAC created arbitrary and
politicized obstacles in both the application and renewal processes that
limited most access to those with expensive legal support. During this time, my organization was denied
a license five times until Senator Leahy’s office intervened, at the same time
it also successfully challenged unduly bureaucratic renewal requirements.

The ultras weapon
this time was USAID democracy programs that their allies had rushed to create
in the closing months of the Bush Administration but that were implemented
during the ignorant or uncaring tenure of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of
State. Among them was the contract
received by Alan Gross to set up a network of satellite linked internet
communications. Instead of apologizing for
and terminating such programs, Clinton played into the hands of the ultras
making Gross’s imprisonment a human rights cause celebre and an obstacle to any
further opening. Her position that the
US had the right to unilaterally sponsor projects in Cuba naturally inflamed
Havana’s sensitivity to infringement of sovereignty. The issue became more complicated when Cuba chose
to link the release of Gross to freedom for the Cuban Five. One can only speculate what the consequences
might have been if the Gross issue had been quickly resolved through mutual
compromise and Obama had opened the door to wide scale travel in his first term
rather than waiting until January 2015.

The decisive
transformation made by Obama at that time was to turn the Clinton categories of
specifically licensed travel into self-governed general licenses, removing all
bureaucratic impediments of an application process. That enabled virtually any group or travel
business to organize its own trip under the people to people general license. The description of purpose and internal administration
of group trips was not changed, but absent a requirement for applications and
renewals was virtually unenforceable.
The separate licensing of travel providers as OFAC police was also
ended.

A moment of silence for victims of terrorism in Europe before the US-Cuba baseball game.

The final
step of Obama on March 15, 2016, was to permit individuals, families and
friends to organize travel independently under the individual general license
for people to people travel. This
dramatically opened travel to Americans who could not afford or disliked group
travel—or who wanted to share Cuba with their children. A natural consequence was the increase of
business for Cuba’s emerging private sector of casas particulares and paladars
and their support enterprises, thanks to dramatically reduced costs and the
convenience of direct credit card payment on line in the US to AirBnB and for commercial
flights.

At this
stage one could say travel had become nearly normal, excepting only all
inclusive beach holidays.

(following not included in oral
presentation)

The
character and goals of the Trump Administration are a dominant theme of this
conference, but their confused character is well illustrated by travel. Some of us had been optimistic that Trump
would leave alone or even expand Obama’s initiatives. His professional involvement in the leisure
industry had led him to fund an illegal sounding in Cuba and a legal delegation
to discuss golf courses and hotel. A
participant in the second trip, the Trump Organization’s counsel, Jason
Greenblatt, whose father or father in law emigrated from Cuba seemed will
disposed toward normalization and had been given a special portfolio on Cuba in
the new Administration.

Even when
Trump gave an anti-Obama red meat political speech in June in Miami, the
changes he proposed in travel were substantively minor. Untouched were virtually all forms of travel,
including group tours, cultural exchanges (such as the Irish traditional music
and dance performances we undertook last month in Holguin and Santiago) and the
most touristic kind of interaction, cruise ships. His attack on hotels under GAESA could be
easily countered by restoring Habaguanex to the Historian’s office, reopening
most of the banned facilities used by Americans in Habana Vieja. His destruction of the individual general
license was already being minimized by hints of an opening of a new path for
independent travelers under a different license category, Support for the Cuban
People.

Irish, Irish American and Cuban musicians perform traditional music for dance practice in Holguin, November 2017

Despite the
unjustified 60 % draw down of US diplomats in September, the June model was
largely implemented when the new OFAC regulations were announced last month. Support for the Cuban People was modified so
it no longer was limited to people who embodied a subversive agenda. (see text below)

Despite this
reality, the number of US visitors has plummeted. In part that is due to the political
climate. Hostile words, even from an
unpopular and morally discredited President, change the atmosphere for uncertain
travelers impacted by half a century of hostility and mistrust.

The drawdown
of US diplomats procedurally required a completely unjustified travel warning
because of the limited capacity to provide services to US citizens. In addition to the psychological impact
flowing from half a century of negativity about Cuba, a travel warning triggers
insurance and legal prohibitions on university, business and other
institutional travelers.

The New York
Times, for example has already canceled three months of group tours to Cuba
because of diminished interest and canceled reservations. Why would its affluent and relatively well
informed clients have been so easily scared off?

We still
don’t know whether the new tactic by Cuban American ultras to block travel and
reverse normalization was the mysterious illness said to have afflicted US government
personnel in Havana. If Cuba’s apparent
position that nothing actually happened is correct, the fact that the original
targets were reportedly US intelligence operatives could mean they were conspirators
in a planned disruption of relations. Or
their covert identity could mean they were a deliberate target of some non-Cuban
force opposed to normalization, for example North Korea which shows little
regard for international or diplomatic norms.

In any case,
it is certain that the ultras quickly moved to exploit the situation. Senator Rubio and four colleagues had called
for the US to close both embassies a few days before Secretary Tillerson withdrew
60% of staff, perhaps to prevent worse.
Rubio and Rep. Diaz-Ballart also criticized the revised travel
restrictions as having been subverted by the bureaucracy so their game has not
ended.

Despite the
State Department’s apparent intention to make Support for the Cuban People a
replacement for the individual general license, the published language, although
modified favorably, was open to misunderstanding or deliberate
misinterpretation for reasons of economic self-interest or politics. In my view
if the goal of travelers is to promote independent activity to strengthen civil
society and their activities enhance contact with the Cuban people, with the
result of meaningful interaction, their presence in Cuba will be seen positively
as legitimate support for the emerging private sector, they qualify for this
general license and they will be welcome visitors.

If they are
motivated by the other listed goals and act on them, their presence could be
regarded as intrusive and not respectful of Cuba's sovereignty by authorities.
The same can be said for still legal group people to people tours which are encumbered
by the same presumptuous language.

The ultras no
doubt welcomed the effective termination of US visa granting authority as the
result of withdrawal of diplomats. They
are spared the permanent addition of at least 20,000 Cuban immigrants annually,
most of whom will eventually become anti-embargo voters, and of tens of
thousands of non-immigrant visitors who deepen personal links across the
straights.

No doubt the
ultras are hoping that the drastically diminished utility of the embassy,
combined with the possibly provocative choice of a new charge d’affairs who was
expelled as US ambassador to Bolivia, could lead Cuba to righteous actions that
will be used to justify termination of diplomatic relations. If in fact the Trump Administration strategy
is to make the embassy a facade as was charged this morning, the effective
Cuban response would be to make it more real by constantly inviting
participation by US diplomats in broader aspects of Cuban society than has been
the case.

We have two
reasons to hope: First, Cuban Americans
and US academic organizations could start complaining vociferously about the
end of visas and hold Rubio and Diaz-Ballart personally responsible. Second, if the Democrats take back the House
of Representatives in 2018, they can join a majority of Senators to end
legislatively all travel restrictions.
Then we will see whether President Pence or Ryan will veto their action.

--John McAuliff, Fund for Reconciliation and
Development, 12/14/17

Full text of Support for
the Cuban People section

CUBAN ASSETS CONTROL
REGULATIONS

§515.574
Support for the Cuban People.

(a) General license. The travel-related
transactions set forth in §515.560(c) and other transactions that are intended
to provide support for the Cuban people are authorized, provided that:

(1) The activities are of:

(i) Recognized human rights organizations;

(ii) Independent organizations designed to
promote a rapid, peaceful transition to democracy; or(iii) Individuals and
non-governmental organizations that promote
independent activity intended to strengthen civil society in Cuba; and

(2) Each traveler engages in a full-time
schedule of activities that:

(i) Enhance contact
with the Cuban people, support civil society in Cuba, or promote
the Cuban people's independence from Cuban authorities; and

(ii) Result in
meaningful interaction with individuals in Cuba.

(3) The traveler's schedule of activities does
not include free time or recreation in excess of that consistent with a
full-time schedule.

Note
that virtually identical language describes authorized people to people
educational travel for groups:

§515.565 Educational
activities.

(b) General license for
people-to-people travel.

(2) Travel-related transactions pursuant to this
authorization are for the purpose of engaging, while in Cuba, in a full-time
schedule of activities that enhance contact with the Cuban
people, support civil society in Cuba, or promote the Cuban people's
independence from Cuban authorities;

(3) Each traveler has a full-time schedule of educational
exchange activities that result in meaningful interaction between the traveler
and individuals in Cuba;

My layman's interpretation: if a travelers’ view of their
goal is to promote independent activity to strengthen civil society and their activities
enhance contact with the result of meaningful interaction, their presence in
Cuba will be positive in support of the emerging private sector and they
qualify for this general license. If they are motivated by the other
listed goals and act on them, their presence could be regarded as intrusive and
not respectful of Cuba's sovereignty.

Friday, December 8, 2017

How the partial closure of Havana's U.S. embassy nearly derailed PST: LA/LA's Cuban music festival

By RANDY LEWIS
NOV 21, 2017 | 3:25 PM

Bringing artists to the U.S. is never an easy task. It’s all the more challenging when those artists live in a country under embargo by the federal government. The promoter of this weekend’s Cuban music and arts component of the arts festival Pacific Standard Time: LA / LA found that out the hard way.

A few months ago, the process of acquiring visas for more than two dozen Cuban musicians was going smoothly, said event curator Betto Arcos, who has been promoting world music performances in Los Angeles for years and hosted the “Global Village” world music program for seven years on KPFK-FM (90.7).

The musicians — hip-hop artist Telmary, Afro-Cuban jazz drummer Yissy Garcia and tres guitarist Pancho Amat, plus their bands — had submitted petitions for visas through the Department of Homeland Security. All but three of 26 applications were approved.

But following a mysterious series of incidents deemed “specific attacks” causing hearing loss and other unexplained illnesses for numerous Americans posted in Havana, more than 20 U.S. Embassy employees were called home from Cuba in September.

One result was that the process of granting visas slowed to a trickle.

Even though their visas had been approved, the musicians Arcos was trying to bring to Los Angeles were unable to acquire them in Havana, putting the three-day “Cuba: Antes, Ahora/Cuba: Then, Now,” festival that opens Thursday in jeopardy.

Through a series of creative moves, and with some assistance from John Feeley, the U.S. Ambassador to Panama, all three headline performers have procured their visas and will appear as scheduled at the festival’s free Friday night program, Sleepless: The Music Center After Hours, which will fill the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with sound and visual installations, art displays, film screenings and live music, as well as at Saturday afternoon’s free Rumba Dance Party + Jam Session in Grand Park.

Garcia is bringing her regular five-piece band, Bandancha, and Amat will travel solo, performing with an L.A.-based Cuban ensemble that specializes in the same traditional son music that Amat plays at home.

“Yissy Garcia, just by chance, was on tour in Argentina, and we got them to stay a little longer,” Arcos said. That’s when he put in a call to ambassador Feeley, whom he’d met years earlier in Washington D.C., before the diplomat was appointed to his post in Panama in 2015. Feeley helped Garcia and her five-piece group get appointments at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires in time to get their visas in hand before returning to Cuba.

For Telmary, who performs with an eight-piece band at home, Arcos said, “We didn’t know what we were going to do — we don’t have the money to fly to anywhere, and that’s eight people.”

Telmary, however, volunteered to use some of the fee she would get to perform in the U.S. to travel with several of her band members to Mexico. She was able to get her visa and those of about half her band from the U.S. Embassy there. She’ll perform this weekend with additional support from three L.A. musicians, two of whom are Cuban.

“The biggest news,” Arcos said last week, “is that I just got word this morning [from Feeley] that Pancho is on his way to L.A. The U.S. Consulate in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic has approved his visa. I just screamed with joy. He is a tower of music and has seen the entire history of the music of Cuba over the last 50 years.”

Amat, however, is coming alone, even though in Havana his band includes a guitarist, two percussionists, a bassist, two singers and a trumpeter in addition to himself on the tres, one of the signature instruments in Cuban son music.

The tres has six strings like a standard acoustic guitar, but they are strung in three pairs, each doubling notes an octave apart, akin to the more common 12-string guitar. The tres, which is native to Cuba and originated in Guantanamo, can cut through the sound of a large ensemble to add a shimmering, vibrant dimension to the overall sound.

Through a bit of serendipity, Amat will perform with an L.A.-based son ensemble led by another Cuban tres player: San Miguel, who immigrated to the U.S. years ago.

“Pancho was his teacher, and mentored him in Havana,” Arcos said. “I told him, ‘We can’t bring your band, but I want you to come. You’re the man. I really want you to be here.’ He said, ‘What am I going to do?’ I said, ‘I want you to play with San Miguel’s band.’ And he said, ‘Yeah — I’m in.’”

Each group highlights a different strand of Cuban music, fulfilling Arcos’ mission in putting a varied Cuban music and arts program together.

It opens Thursday at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Century City, which currently is featuring an exhibition about Cuba. At 7 p.m. Arcos will conduct a ‘Then, Now’ question-and-answer session with Amat, followed by L.A.-based Cuban flutist Danilo Lozano interviewing Garcia, then African American composer and musician Dexter Story in a talk with Telmary.

On Friday, all three bands will perform at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion’s late-night session running from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., also featuring guest DJs. Saturday’s jam session in Grand Park downtown will be led by a rumba group from Havana with appearances by Garcia, Telmary and Amat and other guests.

The festival concludes Saturday night when Cuban dance ensemble Malpaso performs at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with musical accompaniment from the New York-based Afro Cuban Jazz Band led by Arturo O’Farrill, whose father, Chico O’Farrill, was one of the pioneers of Afro Cuban jazz in the late 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s.

Arturo O’Farrill also is a new Grammy nominee, picking up a nomination earlier this week for instrumental composition for his work “Three Revolutions.”

Arcos expressed disappointment over the Trump Administration’s recent decision to pull back on the steps President Obama had taken to improve relations with Cuba, following nearly 60 years of the cultural, trade and travel embargo imposed after Fidel Castro’s populist Revolution installed a communist government on the island in 1959.

“This administration has aligned itself with the conservative side of the Cuban American community, but it’s not a monolithic community,” said Arcos, who is Mexican. “The majority of Cubans living in the U.S. don’t want the embargo to continue, because they’ve seen that it doesn’t work.”

That debate is likely to continue in the years ahead, but for now, Arcos’ focus is on what’s looming this weekend.

“The main thing here is it will give people an impression of what Cuba is,” he said. “It’s much more than most people think about it, and they’re going to get a chance to see it all. It’s going to be a party.”

Sunday, December 3, 2017

An
opportunity to combine the freedom and spontaneity of the new general license
for individual travel with a structured program that introduces you to Cuban
history and culture in the country’s vital east end, and the past and current
role of the US.

Bed and
breakfast private housing and intercity transportation will be coordinated by the organizers. The majority of lunches and
dinners and consumption at evening events will not be included.

October 23: fly Miami or Ft. Lauderdale to Holguin to participate in Casa de Iberoamerica XIII Congress of Ideas, program here

orOctober 27: fly Miami or Ft. Lauderdale to
Holguin

Holguin 2 nights October 27-28

Pre Columbus
Cuba: Visit the gravesite museum and the replica of a Taino village

Visit the
company town of United Fruit and the church in Banes

Visit the
landing site where Dynamite Johnny O’Brien brought arms and soldiers for the mambisis

Enjoy the
beach with Cubans at Guardalavaca

Two nights
of music and dance with Cuban friends (Club Nocturno, Casa de Iberoamerica?)

Santiago 3 nights October 29-31

Visit Biran,
the large plantation owned by the father of Fidel and Raul Castro

Visit el
Cobre, home of Cuba’s patron saint

Dinner at Terrazas
La Caridad, a paladar that also roasts its own coffee

Visit the Carnival museum for a lecture and performance

Enjoy
traditional Cuban music and dance, learn to dance at Artex

Visit the Spanish
fortress that protected Santiago; the Maceo Memorial honoring a leader of the
mambisi independence struggle, with US supporters like Clara Barton and
Dynamite Johnny O'Brien; the memorial at San Juan Hill to Teddy Roosevelt’s
casualties; the museum of the
Cuban-Spanish-American war for the other side of the story; the Moncada
Barracks (the site of the first stage of the Cuban revolution); the gravesites
of Jose Marti and Fidel Castro,

Guantanamo 2 nights November 1-2

Enjoy the
place that Cuba’s traditional music originated, including Tumba Francesa and the
Museum of Changui. We are requesting a
visit to Caimanera, the town that adjoins the
Guantanamo base, with a briefing on Cuba’s view of US occupation.

Baracoa 1 night
November 3

The oldest
Spanish settlement and first capital of Cuba; cultivation of cacao and production of local chocolate

Return to Holguin 1 night
November 4

Drive to
Holguin

Relax at a
beach en route

Night of
music and dance with Cuban friends (Casa de la Trova?)

Fly Holguin
to Miami or Ft. Lauderdaleon November 5 (Be home for Election Day November 6)

Scheduled visits will
be included in cost for all participants but they can, by notifying the
organizer, choose to opt out of any segment and take personal responsibility
that their planned activity qualifies under “support for the Cuban people”. The individual option is not available during
intercity travel or stops en route. We strongly recommend that each participant, couple or family bring an unlocked quad band GSM phone and purchase a Cuban SIM card in order to combine independence and group maintenance.

A parallel program is available for people to people tour groups that prefer hotel accommodations.

* If this approach is not accepted by Cuban authorities, we will organize a conventional group tour.

Saturday, December 2, 2017

“Travelers can continue visiting Cuba legally,” says Peggy Goldman, Founder and President of Friendly Planet Travel, a U.S. tour company. But if they book their tickets or hotel stays online, they will need to provide proof that they fall under approved categories of travel. Alternatively, visitors can visit the island with operators like Educational Experiences Abroad, Friendly Planet Travel or Cuba Educational Travel.

Now, after a rollback of former President Obama’s easing of restrictions, Goldman explains that, “what Trump did was take away that independent style of travel. Americans can continue to visit as long as they comply with the twelve ways that you can travel to Cuba.”

Although still legally allowed to enter the country, individual Americans must travel with a licensed “people-to-people” group tour. Group tours are required to provide a full-time schedule of educational exchange activities, and an employee of the tour company travels with each group to certify that the schedule is maintained.https://www.newsday.com/travel/cuba-tours-meet-travel-guidelines-1.15560442

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Cuba in past years has appeared on USTOA’s surveys as an emerging destination; this year, however, it appeared on the list of those places “at risk,” that travelers should see now.

“That autonomy [to travel independently] is gone,” he said. “Those individuals have to go with the group operator or a group entity that follows the people-to-people [guidelines].”

Dale also cautioned that airlines that had previously added service to Cuba may drop it now that the ability to travel there has been diminished.

“If they can't fill their seats with individuals and groups, they may pull service. Alaska Airlines pulled their service as an example, and some service was cut back from other airlines, so there are implications to all actions that could affect Cuba, so it's kind of a double-edged sword,” he added.

Dale said USTOA has done some lobbying regarding Cuba travel; however, he admitted he’s not optimistic about the outcome, considering all of the other issues facing Washington, DC.

“Senator Flake has been just an amazing champion of opening up Cuba for all types of travel. Representative Sanford has as well,” he said. “Representative Titus from Nevada has also been pretty outspoken, so we work with them a lot, but when you weigh what they are juggling and their priorities, I don't see this gaining a lot of traction.”

Dale said USTOA on its visits to “The Hill” will continue to press forward, but that it’s an “uphill battle.”

Trump began the rollback on June 16, with regime-change rhetoric and a new directive curtailing the ability of individual US citizens to travel to Cuba..... Now, all non-academic educational visits under the “people-to-people” licenses must be done through a recognized US group-tour agency. This last point is key, as the individual people-to-people category was the one most commonly used by Americans visiting the island; it was the easiest to obtain, the cheapest way to visit Cuba, and the one that offered the most freedom to travel around the island....The fact that US citizens must now travel under the auspices of a US tour company hurts me and others economically because now we are limited to being subcontractors, and no longer have the ability to work with clients directly—if at all.https://www.thenation.com/article/how-trump-is-sabotaging-cubas-new-private-sector/

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Now, tourists can only visit Cuba ”under the auspices of an organisation subject to US jurisdiction” while they must be accompanied by a US representative of the organisation. Thus, the only means of travelling to Cuba for Americans is through an organised trip.

According to the new rules, “people-to-people” exchanges are banned.
Americans who want to meet Cubans will now have to travel in groups accompanied
by an authorized representative of the trip’s sponsoring organization.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/article185625568.html

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Now
Americans who want to visit Cuba will again be limited to tours sanctioned by
the US government, permission for which the Trump administration can make as
stringent as it wants. Numbers will drop precipitously.

-- from an article in the New York Review of Books by Nik Steinberg who served as counselor to the Obama Administration's UN Ambassador Samantha Power.

As we noted before, the most important
policy change with regards to travel is that U.S. travelers can no longer travel
on their own under the broad ‘people to people’ category without going through
an authorized travel provider like Global
Exchange Reality Tours.

*********************************

Individuals can travel under the Support for the Cuban People Category. This means that anybody can visit Cuba if they spend majority of their time interacting with the Cuban people, supporting the private sector, and supporting civil society (donating to church, synagogue or community program or offering information to entrepreneurs).

Cuba Educational Travel assists individual travelers in complying with this category, so you can carry out your own itinerary but comply with the law.

My layman's interpretation: if your view of your goal is to promote independent activity to strengthen civil society and your activities enhance contact with the result of meaningful interaction, your presence in Cuba will be positive in support of the emerging private sector and you qualify for this general license. If you are motivated by the other listed goals and act on them, your presence will be regarded as intrusive and not respectful of Cuba's sovereignty. -- John McAuliff